


Don

by DepressedDaisy



Series: The Newsroom Character Studies [1]
Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Season/Series 02, mentions of Don Keefer/Sloan Sabbith, mentions of Maggie Jordan/Don Keefer, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29204976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DepressedDaisy/pseuds/DepressedDaisy
Summary: “So because you think you're a bad guy, you try to do things you think a good guy would do.”
Series: The Newsroom Character Studies [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144208





	Don

“So because you think you're a bad guy, you try to do things you think a good guy would do.” were the words that reverberated in Don’s mind for weeks. A lot of what Sloan had said had shaken him, actually (She didn’t really like him, right? That just made no sense. Besides her being miles out of his league, she’d never, in the years they’ve known each other and worked together, ever given him any indication to that effect. Or maybe she had? And he’d just missed it, so hung up in his own relationship drama? But no, that makes no sense. It had to be a joke. Something she’d only say to shock him into paying attention to her. She’d said it herself, she only meant to catch him off-guard, and she didn’t want to talk about it later. Right? Right. That would have to be that) but that part specifically stuck with him for a long while and he couldn’t shrug it off.

Never had someone singled him out and translated his own mind to him like that. And been right.

For as long as he could remember, Don’s been told to “be a man”. To not be emotional, to be ruthless, to strike, not wait for it. He’d seen and he’d been told that journalists and producers had to spend their entire lives shouting at everyone else to be heard and to stand by their convictions and what they thought was right. He came up in an industry that put ratings over content, and where every job interview, every newsroom, every story was a battleground. All his life, and all through his career he’s tried to conciliate “being good at his job” and “being a good guy”, thinking they were competing notions, both definitions having been given to him by more people than he could pinpoint. He’s gone against his own instincts, he’s picked up bad habits, and he’s hurt people, all because he’d been told that’s the way the world works and that’s what he should do, too.

Except it really isn’t, is it? Don’s known that, multiple times, but he’s ignored it, thinking it’s what he’s supposed to do. He’d left News Night, knowing it was a sinking ship and it was better for his career to go with Elliot. He’d stayed with Maggie, even if he didn’t feel about her the way he knew you were supposed to feel about someone when you loved them. He’d been with other girls, too, when they were technically broken up, because “that’s what broken up means, right?” and maybe they’d make him wake up and realize he didn’t want anyone else, just her. He’d been rude and dismissive to other staffers and other people because he’d never quite wrapped his head around the notion of “teams”, and it was supposed to be “killed or be killed”. All those times, so many times, way too many times, he didn’t feel right about it, but he did it anyways, because it was what he was supposed to do.

And for the first time in forever, he’s starting to think it’s not just an annoying voice in his head. Mostly because other people are saying it too. Mackenzie got here and changed the way they all looked at news broadcasting, just like that. Will started to actually care about the team, and that made them care about each other. More and more often, his problems with Maggie aren’t coming just from him, but from her too (he’s doing everything in his power to try and fix it from both sides, but the doubt’s already there – what if they really aren’t supposed to be together?). And now this. Sloan Sabbith, of all people, she who is supposed to be socially inept in all things personal and emotional, pinpoints exactly what he’s been struggling with and basically tells him to knock it off. That he’d be better off actually listening to that voice. To his conscience.

And maybe, just maybe, the first thing he ought to do in this new, enlightened state is listen to Sloan. It might just be the smartest decision he’s made in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> TLDR – Don thinks he’s supposed to act like a “bad guy”, knowing deep down it’s wrong, so he tries to do “good guy” things to balance it off, when really, he should just knock it all off and be himself.
> 
> My exploration on how/why Don changed from S1 to S2, and why he goes on to let go of Maggie, to finally see Sloan, to commit to Elliot’s show, etc, to just being a nicer person. Aka, my way to make up for that writing blunder that is “S1 douchebag Don”.


End file.
